Professional Experiences:

• Teaching and research experience for more than 33 years in the Colleges and Universities

• Served as a consultant and resource person in various national and international organizations such as GIZ, ANZEDEC Ltd in association with Full bright consultancy, CARENepal, BEED consultancy, UNDP/SMRT Office Kathmandu for Business Plan Development to Cooperative Market Development Project, Vegetable Packhouse Consultant to Feed the Future Knowledge-based Integrated Sustainable Agriculture in Nepal (KISAN) II Project, Kathmandu, Nepal. Consultant to Nepal Development Research Institute (NDRI), Nepal as a Horticulture expeert for Mid-term evaluation Value Chain Development Project of Fruits and Vegetables in Nepal supported by Koica and UNDP, Lead Consultant to Nepal Tea and Coffee Development Board to Review the current existing policies on coffee production and come up with guidelines on Good Agriculture Practice (GAP) in coffee for Nepal.

• Completed various locally and internationally supported research projects in horticulture

• Have published 86 research articles in various national and international journals and 21 books and manuals a main author and co-author.

• Supervised more than 50 Master and 6 Ph.D students in the field of horticulture.

• Award of Recognition “ Outstanding Research Leader and Scientist in Quality and Postharvest Horticulture” by the International Society of Horticultural Science and Royal University of Agriculture, Cambodia.

Expertize: Horticulture (Postharvest horticulture, Commercial Production of horticultural crops and Value Chain Activities).

Dr. Pranil Man Singh Pradhan is an Associate Professor at the Department of Community Medicine at Maharajgunj Medical Campus, Institute of Medicine, Tribhuvan University, Kathmandu. He received his M.B.B.S (Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery and MD (Doctor of Medicine in Community Medicine and Tropical Diseases) degree from B.P. Koirala Institute of Health Sciences, Dharan, Nepal. Received a Diploma in Global Health from Tanzania. He is a Lown Scholar in Bernard Lown Scholar in Cardiovascular Health Program at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and a research fellow in Translational Research Capacity Building project to address cardiovascular diseases in Nepal at Dhulikhel Hospital, Kathmandu University. He is the recipient of Young Scientist Award 2019 by Nepal Health Research Council.

Expertise:

Nutrition, Communicable and non-communicable diseases prevention and control, Tobacco and alcohol control, Occupational health,

Mr. Ram Hari Gaihre is a Senior Statistician at Nepal Development Research Institute (NDRI). He specializes in survey statistics, poverty measurements for targeting, and complex data analysis and interpretation of indicators. He holds a Master of Science in Statistics from Tribhuvan University, Nepal and a Master of Arts in Economics (Econometrics). With more than 28 years of experience in the field of statistics, his expertise spans census and sample survey operations, survey instrument development, data analysis, report writing and results dissemination.

He has worked for the government of Nepal at the capacity of Statistician, including the National Statistics Office, the Ministry of Cooperatives and Poverty Alleviation, and the Ministry of Women, Children and Senior Citizens. He served as a statistical trainer at Asian Institute of Technology in Thailand, where he contributed to statistical capacity building on poverty mapping for ASEAN member countries. Additionally, he worked as a survey sampling expert for Afghan police literacy at UNESCO Kabul and served as a national consultant for UN ESCAP for data integration using diverse data sources (census, survey and administrative records).

He has pioneered on the identification of poor households in 26 districts of Nepal and has contributed to multidimensional poverty measurement (MPI) developed by Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative, UK, as well as monetary poverty measurement, including small area estimation (SAE) of poverty developed by the World Bank.

Dibesh Shrestha is a water resources engineer and modeler with academic background in Hydroinformatics. His primary work in past 10 years includes hydrological and hydrodynamic modelling, bias correction and statistical downscaling, analysis of hydroclimatic extremes, and climate risk assessment for various water resources studies in Nepal. He is a senior research associate and a member of the Water and Climate Program. He was involved as a climate change analysis specialist contributing to the preparation of river basin master plans and guidelines for climate risk assessment in the hydropower sector. He was JJ/WBGSP scholar in 2013-2014.

Expertise on health policy formulation, planning, implementation and monitoring of high priority health programs for around 30 years. As a medical graduate, worked in different hospitals of Nepal and delivered the preventive and curative care, but later after doing master’s degree in public health the work shifted to public health activities. Also contributed as a coordinator for introduction of new approach of health aid known as Health Sector Strategy and Nepal Health Sector Programme I, II with key elements of aid management -health sector reform, sector wide approach, donor coordination and pooling of the fund to achieve millennium development goals, decentralized management of health services including poverty reduction through the implementation of essential health care services (EHCS) package focusing poor and underprivileged to utilize EHCS. In later part worked as Director of Epidemiology and Disease Control Division though many activities are similar as mentioned above.

Director of Epidemiology and Disease Control Division (EDCD), Department of Health Services, Kathmandu from 2013 to 2019; Programme Coordinator for Nepal Health Sector Programme I and II (2004-2010 and 2010-2013) and Chief of Health Sector Reform Unit, Ministry of Health, Kathmandu. Reproductive Health Training Coordinator at National Health Training Center, Department of Health Services, Teku, Kathmandu from 2001-2003. Also worked as a National Safe -motherhood Coordinator, Family Health Division, Department of Health Services, Teku, Kathmandu from 1997-2000. Then, served as a District Health Officer {DHO}, District Health Office, Dhulikhel, Kavre District 1995-199. Then as a Medical Officer and Registrar, Kanti Children's Hospital, Kathmandu 1991-1995.

Has expertise in creating various evaluation reports for:

• Women's Health in Nepal, Final Evaluation, ADRA, Nepal, 1997

• Evaluation of Safe Motherhood Services, Final Evaluation, Family Planning Association of Nepal, 1999

• Integrated Community- Based Family Health Project, Mid-term Evaluation, ADRA Nepal, 2000

• Assessment of Management Needs at District Level Health Institutions, Kathmandu University, School of Management, National Health Training Center, UNFPA, 2001

• Health Manpower Development in Nepal: A Policy Analysis; Nepal Health Research Council, Kathmandu, 2003

• Endline Evaluation of RISE Project, International Medical Corps, 2017

Has experience with various qualitative and quantitative methods while conducting 8 research projects and during evaluation of 6 projects. In regard to qualitative analysis, has performed joint monitoring field visits, donor coordination meetings, trimester reporting of physical and financial progress reports to health sector donors (AusAID, DFID, GAVI, GIZ, UNICEF, UNFPA, USAID, World Bank, WHO), Key Informant interviews, Focus Group Discussions. Quantitative data includes various household surveys conducted and statistical data analysis.

Dr. Suraj Shakya is a clinical psychologist with a passion for promoting mental health in Nepal. He completed his MPhil in Clinical Psychology from the Institute of Medicine, Tribhuvan University (Nepal) in 2012 and has since dedicated himself to research, teaching, and clinical practice. His doctoral research focused on developing and validating tool to assess emotional and behavioral problems in Nepalese children and adolescents as part of his interest in psychometrics. He has been actively contributing as a supervisor to research projects at Masters, MPhil and PhD under Tribhuvan University and abroad in various mental health related topics. He actively serves as a consultant for various organizations, offering his insights on baseline/endline evaluation, training, and intervention design related to mental health and psychosocial support. Notably, he contributed as a member of the technical working committee for the National Mental Health Survey conducted by the Nepal Health Research Council in 2020. His clinical practice in Tribhuvan University Teaching Hospital and online service utilizes evidence-based approaches like Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) to help individuals overcome a range of emotional and behavioral challenges. He is an international diplomate and certified CBT therapist with the Academy of Cognitive & Behavioral Therapies – USA